Embrace

Embrace what is offered to you. I have experienced this a couple of times now and this makes a huge difference in your learning habits. If you have a thing that you are working on, with your horse or in every other context, and you don´t focus on solving the problem in a certain way but you are open to what is offered to you in that moment, you will probably progress on your „problem“ as well. Zaka for example has some issues at the moment on leaving the herd. At one point she turned on her heels after we started a little walk and was running around me. She did not spook, but told me right before, she did not want to go further. But I thought, it´s a beautiful day, let´s go. I should have listened to her, because now, when we leave the stable, she stops at a certain point and just stands. I don´t know why, maybe the forest looks different after the trees are chopped, maybe I am different, I won´t know. So instead of punishing her for not going further or argue with her I thought, well, my little spanish girl has usually a problem with standing still. Why not use this? So we focused on training the stop and stay. We start right after passing the stable gate and walk three steps, I ask her to stand still, reward her for doing so and slowly, we make our way into the forest. She is relaxed, has something to focus on and we are training two things at the same time, standing still and walking into the forest. After two sessions I´m able to leave her, go 7 meters away from her and come back. We made a good thing out of a „problem“ and are sharing a good time together. Why not always think like that! It is often our mindset, our own expectations and limits that stop us from crossing borders. My child often teaches me that lesson, I am myself often preoccupied with an outcome of a situation I have in my mind. But learning is not a straight line, it is so much more. You cant´t compare and define progress every day with a calculator in your hands. That is not how creatures work. In our scienced based world, everyone wants to believe it, because it is easy. If you go with your feelings you have to be in the moment and bring your mind to your body. In our world the mind is often miles away from the body… at the store, at the problems that need to be solved, at the dreams that want to be dreamed. But if your mind is in the moment and is in your body right here, right now and you can go with your horses´pace and open your eyes to your possibilities, you can do so much more together, more than you can ever dream of. Give it a try!